


Candy Break

by Tyellas



Category: The Shape of Water - Fandom
Genre: Amputation, Blood, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, Control Issues, Dark, Gen, Gore, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rape Fantasy, Slime, Torture, Villains, for resilient readers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-13
Updated: 2018-01-13
Packaged: 2019-03-04 09:48:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13362009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tyellas/pseuds/Tyellas
Summary: Inside Strickland’s head as he torments, tames, and presents the Asset for General Hoyt – and his hidden audience.





	Candy Break

**Author's Note:**

> You read the warnings, right? This one is relentless...  
> .  
> .  
> .  
> .

The setup is perfect.

Strickland turns his back on the plinth that holds the seething, slimy Asset. He balances his cattle prod across the chair that holds his blazer. It’s his last moment for a break before it all happens. As he leaves the dim laboratory, the door closes behind him with a satisfying thud.

Inside one of the sickly green Occam restrooms, he pops a candy in his mouth. It doesn’t soothe him. He follows it with a pain pill, cupping up a handful of water from the sink to swallow both. Thank Christ for good clean American drugs. They smoothed you out, both body and mind. Strickland replaces the candy with another one. He wants the taste of routine.

He washes the one hand that he can. Not being able to wash his left hand makes him crazy. He’d swear it’s cold and slimy under those bandages.

It makes him remember. The slime coating the monster’s skin had been the last thing his fingers had felt before the bite. Thick, viscous, sticky, like cold semen. Unforgettable. He’d planned to hook into the beast’s fragile gills to show it – and Hoffstetler – who was boss. Instead, there’d been the kind of lunge he’d thought was beaten out of the thing by now, a hideous crack, shearing pain, his own howl –

Strickland shifts his candy between two molars and cracks it, too. His head fills with shards of flavor.

He takes care of pissing. Without anyone around, he gives in to using his decent hand. Everything has to be perfect, spotless. Under control. He is going to go back into that fucking lab and finish wearing out that fucking Asset so that nothing, _absolutely nothing_ goes wrong in front of General Hoyt.

Fleming stumbles in as he’s finishing, to pause in the doorway, uneasy.  Strickland smirks. “Go ahead. I’m not stopping you.”

“I was – looking for you. You’re supposed to stay in, in call range.”

Strickland shakes off and turns to face Fleming. “Yeah, well, nature calls, too.” He tucks and zips. “ _He’s_ here, isn’t he?”

With a girl’s prissiness, Fleming waits until they’re in the hallway for business. “Yes. General Hoyt’s arrived – driver’s parked in the VIP spot of course – he’s in the main Signals area - Sally’s bringing him coffee – “

Strickland nods.  “Where’s the eggheads?”

“They were on level 3, in the imaging lab. I sent someone to bring them, I’ve requisitioned a cart.”

“Good,” Strickland grants.

Back at the lab door, Strickland raises his eyebrows. He hadn’t become General Hoyt’s right-hand black-ops man by missing details. A cleaning cart without a cleaner is a hard detail to miss. Fucking Fleming. Then, he checks the cart’s clipboard. ESPOSITO.

“Fleming, I have to finish some things in here. Fetch the general, willya?” He knew it would madden Fleming to hear it said like it was nothing. Fleming scrambles off.

Strickland checks the clipboard again. He strokes his right thumb across Elisa’s name, feeling his mouth lift. He’d been doing the usual with a new crew, pushing every person to see what made them break. That included the cleaners. Finding out Elisa was a mute, he’d taken his first real look at her. She was strangely familiar. Like he’d known her when he was a kid. Or in one of the wars. Her deadpan face showed that she’d seen some shit in her mute freakshow of a life. She surely must have. Because being interrogated by Colonel Richard Strickland barely mattered to her.

In the middle of it, she’d returned his wedding ring. He’s been trying to wear the damn thing ever since. It’s a constant irritation, on the wrong hand, the wrong finger, always sweaty. Like it still holds the warmth of her body.

Once all this is done, he’ll treat himself to another break. Get Miss Esposito out of his system before getting out of Baltimore.

How would he have her? Maybe in the back seat of the new car, when he’d picked it out. Easy enough to offer her a ride on a rainy night, pull over in an alley. He’d mouth her silent lips before getting his tongue on her scars, his fingers under her skirt. Or they’d seal the deal in a no-tell hotel. He’d undress her for a shower – girls liked to be clean. Then he’d join her in the water, to see how well she took orders. Try to feel her throat’s scars on the inside, without using his hands.

All yet another reason to get this over with. Strickland strokes his access card, punches in the pass code.

As the lab’s doors grind open, Strickland catches the creature’s ascending gurgles, and something more. A shadow that flutters, the enticing, tell-tale click of feminine heels. Elisa is still there. She’d taken fright at the Asset’s disgusting sounds, headed for cover. He has another chance to show the creature and a watcher who is in charge.

Strickland strides back in. “Miss me, huh? I took a candy break.” He tosses his sweets aside to lift his cattle prod. Then, he does what he does best, breaks the creature down. Knowing Elisa is listening in gives him verve. He shocks, goads, shifts to keep it off balance. The monster’s skin, too wet to burn, has broken and bled from their first round. It’s never been an uglier customer, visibly drained, reduced to shuffling and bawling. Good. The less human it is when others see it, the better.

Strickland has learned to hate this thing as much as it surely hates him. It’s an arms race. The only thing that keeps him ahead and sane is hating more. The monster’s slinky in the water, shambling and squirming on land, colors and contours changing every minute. He can hardly settle when he’s not around it, thinking what it might do. It has returned to his dreams.

None of that stops him. “Maybe you’d like to get another bite of me, huh? Go ahead!” It rises to Strickland’s bait, and he strikes it down. He tightens with triumph, stalks around it, poised. “Are ya beggin’? ‘Cause to me, it’s just the worst fucking noise I’ve ever heard.” With that, he delivers the shock he knows will still it, straight to the heart.

Then Strickland’s toe knocks into something that ricochets with a crack. He watches it roll, bends down and picks up…a hard-boiled egg.

Instantly, he knows where it’s from. And it fills him with rage.

Hoffstetler!

There’d always been someone over Strickland’s shoulder around this abomination, trying to one-up him. Certain that they’d be the one to tame it, that they’d know it better than he did. Feeding it like a critter at the zoo was a dead giveaway for that. Hoffstetler was only the latest. He grits his teeth. The scientists are fucking up constantly and it’s going to come back down on him. They were supposed to have the answers about the Asset by now. He’d been told they were the experts, they’d know better than him. But they didn’t.

You had to understand a man or a beast to hunt it. He’d gone to a place between the two to find the Asset in the Amazon rainforest. Slinking through swamps, wired half-crazy on jungle drugs, stripped down like the native trackers, armed like Ahab. He could remember the _thud_ as his harpoon gun struck home, the spear’s chain pulling tight, connecting them. Triumphant, he had lifted it in his arms and dragged it out of its world. Both of them naked and bloody, its primal slime gluing them together wherever they touched. That moment had been perfect. The last moment when he’d known for sure he was better than it. Better than anyone. Delivering.

Now they’re here, together, in a place as civilized as it gets. But for all the scientitsts' notes and papers – and he’s read them all – none of them have the answers to carry Strickland beyond that moment. They want more time with the thing. Strickland needs the opposite. They can’t say what it is, or what comes next. So he will.

There’s beeping and grinding and the lab doors open. Strickland tosses the stray animal feed in his hand aside. “General Hoyt! Glad to have you, sir! Everything’s ready.”

In person, Hoyt’s always a smaller man than Strickland remembers. Strickland breaks a sweat anyway, takes in the irony of Hoyt saying, “Good God. Is that it? Much bigger than I pictured.” They sit down together, shoot the shit while Hoyt takes stock.

Hoffstetler’s there, too, and the battle’s on. The scientist fumes as Hoyt spreads out, glances at reports, chucks them aside, rambles. Again, Strickland’s got the advantage. He’s killed for the man, time and time again. He knows what Hoyt wants. Meanwhile, Hoffstetler cringes as he examines the creature, both of them on the plinth, both weakened. “Sir. We need to get him back in the water.”

Strickland bulldozes that, talks over it. Breaking the Asset in front of the general is imperative. He wants Hoyt to see the weakness in this blend of man and beast, for all its resilience, the enviable khaki camouflage built into its skin. He sees Hoffstetler incredulous when he gives the General a tight take on the Asset’s biology and a plan of what to do next. “Vivisect this thing. Take it apart and learn how it works.”

The Asset’s gush of urine as it twitches and passes out, humiliating itself, is ideal. Hoffstetler himself admits it’s broken, orders the others to put it back in the tank. Then he breaks, too.

“General Hoyt. Sir: you cannot – under any circumstance – kill this creature …” He fades out, freezes. Strickland knows the mistake he’s made, that Hoyt’s fixed him with that stainless-steel gaze.

Hoyt drawls, “Count these with me, son. There’s five of them.” He taps his general’s stars. “That means I can do whatever the hell I want.”

Strickland clenches both hands without thinking, the hot one and the cold one, like he can feel those stars under each fingertip. That’s what he wants, too. That power. So many better things are waiting for him. America’s on the verge of more than one war, he knows. Napalm, night fighting, even nukes – all of them will be opportunity. They’ll need someone tough, decisive, ruthless, like him. It’s all so close he can taste it, like shards of sugar.

Hoyt goes on. “You wanna plead your case? I’ll listen. But, end of the day, it is my damn decision.” While Hoffstetler recoils from this, Strickland gives the lab a last hunter’s scan. He catches Elisa, very still. Watching. Her face has hardened, like a war zone whore. She’s slid back far enough that green light from the tank setup has her, turning her skin to water-ripples.

Strickland leaves without a second glance, in first-rate company, right next to Hoyt. Hoffstetler has attached himself to them, stubborn and unwelcome as a leech. Strickland feels dumb sitting in a damn golf cart indoors, but Hoffstetler looks dumber clinging to the tiny back bench.

The scientist holds his silence until the cart stops close to Strickland’s office. They walk through the Signals center to reach it upstairs. Hoffstetler, too, is incontinent, not able to shut up on the way through.  “General, I must insist –“

Strickland turns. “Security, Bob.” They both look at Hoyt.

Hoyt harrumphs (like the Asset does sometimes) and grouses, “Loose lips sink ships. Can it ‘till we’re confidential.”

By the time they’re up in Strickland’s office, the General’s mood has toughened. Hoffstetler’s flat-out pleading, now. “We cannot kill it! We cannot! This unique life form is more than intelligent, it is surely the key to new knowledge.”

Under the ghastly fluorescent light up here, the bags beneath Hoyt’s eyes are deep. He’s a tired, hard old man, griping, “Well, explain it without that quantum whoosy-whatsis. I’m no Einstein. Break it down like Strickland did earlier.”

Strickland stays quiet, lets Hoffstetler unspool enough rope to hang himself. While the scientist rants, he folds his wounded hand to his chest. Being down in that lab always gives the injured area a chill. It takes a while to fade. His hand’s still cold as Hoyt’s losing his patience. Time to say what’s important. “Every day we keep it here, we risk Russian infiltration. We should get it over with.”

Hoffstetler begs, “No – we must wait – please…”

Again, that pause as they both watch General Hoyt. The seconds tick by. This is the kind of thing Hoyt savors. As their held breath grows tight, Hoyt reaches out, pats Hoffstetler’s shoulder. But what he says is, “Know you like your toys, son. But, wait for what? The Russians?” and Strickland knows he’s won. That abomination will be dead within two days. He and the General both turn on their heels, leaving Hoffstetler behind.

It’s pure anointment when Hoyt adds, on the way out, “Crack the damn thing open. Learn what you can and close up shop here. Give yourself a good pat on the back, Strickland. You’ve done it.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Waiting for the General to get two steps ahead, pausing at the bottom of the stairs, Strickland’s foot hovers over empty space. Everything would be perfect if his left hand wasn’t cold, numb and painful at the same time. If those daytime dreams of dark water weren’t waiting. He roils at what that fucking filthy Asset has done to him, the time and pain it’s cost him, blunting this triumph. He palms a candy, slides it into his mouth while the General’s back is turned.

Elisa’s there again, dutifully buffing a banister. Strickland shoots a look back at her. Sure enough, she’s glancing. She twitches, helplessly silent, eyes darting down. He matters now. Good. Still, not a lot of women could’ve handled what she’d seen. She’s tough enough to take him as he really is. Sly enough for her own secrets, and his, too. No, she isn’t much to look at. But the way she looks at him…  

He’s decided how to have her.

They’ll finish it where the Asset brought their paths together. It’ll be their final, private cleanup, in that green-shadowed lab, on that plinth. Slick with dirty water, laced with the Asset’s death blood, wet enough to soak through her thin blouse. Just have her there, until the sound of her breaking echoes from the pipes and ceiling. Pain or pleasure, it won’t matter. She’ll give him back the power, the lust for life, that fucking beast had taken when he’d peeled himself away from its obscene skin.

If he can make a mute break her silence, he can get that back, too.

The wedding ring shifts on Strickland’s overheated right hand. Heavy with promise.  

**Author's Note:**

> Written to tie in with both the movie and with the hallucinogenic Strickland POV extract from the upcoming _Shape of Water_ novel - [read it here.](https://io9.gizmodo.com/the-shape-of-water-novel-does-much-much-more-than-adap-1820895586?IR=T)
> 
> Is this a genfic? Sometimes I write a thing and _I don't even know anymore_. This does fit into my [Lab T-4](http://archiveofourown.org/series/889623) series.
> 
> Thank you to advance reader Ottie!


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